Suffering and Laughing

I HAD no answer to this question until I watched the play. Then I sat through the more-than-one-hour drama, laughing till the end, thoroughly entertained. Then I thought to myself: If this had been staged during the military era the playwright, cast and crew, and the audience would have been jailed as accessories to a coup. Yeah, that good.

For those who are conversant with the history of the Abacha era, the play – which is almost a decade old – focuses on the “suffering of the masses” under an insensitive dictator countered by the fearless Nigerian press, and patriots including Soyinka. To comedy, the author tweaked the history – a combination of facts and fiction.

And just so you know, there is no character called Wole Soyinka; the play wasn’t even about him. But the quality of actors, the settings, and props made it worth the while.